...England...
As I said in January, we left India safe and sound and made our way to England. There we stayed with my cousin and I visited with most of my English family. After the first week in England Chiraag went to Bali for his mates' bucks.
There he didn't have the best time... he got mugged on the first night. One of the other guys also took inspiration from the Hangover and went missing for two nights. Police, the embassy and his family were called... luckily he turned up a couple of days later after two nights of 'romance'. Hopefully he has been hearing about it from the boys since, and will think to call and check in next time. Chiraag was okay - just a bit roughed up by the perps and pretty shaken.
I stayed in England and apart from being quite worried about the boy had a lovely time. It was great to spend time with family I hadn't seen for ages.
Morrocco
Chiraag and I met up again at the Cassablanca airport, where we both got in within a few hours of each other. It was a relief to see Chiraag again - he had a pretty good black eye and some scabby scratches, but overall he was ok - and glad to be out of Bali.
We only spent the one night in Casablanca and I cant tell you anything about it... We didn't really do anything - just sat around and swapped stories before going to dinner just around the corner from where we were staying. I've never seen the movie - so didn't know what we were supposed to go and see. From what we heard from other people in Morrocco there wasn't much to do there anyway, so I dont think we missed out.
The next morning we got on the first train to Marrakech! Marrakech is a beautiful, crazy, busy, colourful place with great tea and a maze like market. There are not really a lot of sights there - other than a few palaces that paled in comparison to India's (there were apparently some beautiful mosques, but non muslims can't go into them). Marrakech (and Morocco in general) is just about walking around the place and experiencing it.
The old (and cool) part of Marrakech is an old walled city, and the heart of that is the markets. The markets were huge and amazingly colourful. They were built into the city, not out in the open like markets normally are at home. Instead you wandered down tiny twisty alley ways and got really lost, over and over again :). Everything was bright and bold coloured - and everythign was hung up outside the market stalls. Once we'd walked around them once we realised that there is a lot of the same stuff for sale everywhere - and aggressive bartering is required. There were spice markets (which smelled great) and leather works/markets (which apparently smelled terrible - we didn't go there after a few stories about the smell) and all kinds of other cool areas with their own specialties.
In Marrakesch we stayed in a Riad which is like a hostel or a tiny little private hotel. They are converted houses in the middle of the old towns. Ours was very cool and traditional - with traditional artwork all over the place, tea whenever you got home, free sheesa whenever you asked for it, and a guy who worked there who did the best card tricks I've ever seen! We also met some very entertaining tourists who were staying there with us.
After 3 nights in Marrakech we caught the train up to Meknes (after deciding to skip the sea-side towns and desert camel trips - we did camels and tents in the desert in India, and it was too cold for the beach). Meknes was set out the same is Marrakech, but was smaller, less touristy and less bustley. I liked it better. It also has some awesome Roman ruins nearby, which we checked out.
Despite all the cool stuff I've just told you, we were unfortunatly just not in the right mood for Morrocco.
In the awesome markets and generally around the place there is a lot of hassling and begging. If you are thinking about going - there seems to be one big scam we saw or heard about a lot, in a lot of different guises, which you should watch out for:
People will ask you where you are going, and then offer to show you the way through the windy streets. When you get to your destination they will demand money for this service. They have an amount in mind, and it is a tourist price - way more than you ever would have agreed to. If you dont accept the offer of guidance mentioned above sometimes the person will just walk with you chatting, or just ahead of you, or even behind you, and then demand the guidance fee...
I think the thing that really turned me off the place was that everyone in Morrocco was trying to get money out of us - it was like we were fair game because we were tourists. So when we got pinged by the scam above a random guy who saw it going on came over and joined in - saying he worked for our Riad, and that the price we were being told was the correct one and that we had to pay. When we finally got rid of the first guy it turned out the second didn't work at our Riad - he'd been ringing the wrong door bell, stalling us until we paid. It was like everyone would step in to rob you - there must be some unofficial agreement about how the money from these things is split...
But dont let all that put you off going - it wasn't actually worse than anywhere in say south east asia, but after India, and Chiraag's time in Bali, we were just not in the mood to deal with it. We wanted a bit easier travels than that. Also - in summer Morrocco gets really really hot. So the whole place is built to make the summer bearable - like high ceilings and open roofed, enclosed courtyards in the middle of houses and Riads. Unfortunatly, being there in the middle of a really cold winter - the place was freezing! Maybe if we hadn't been so cold we would have been in a better mood about the hassling...?
So anyway - we decided to get out of Africa....
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